What Kind of American English Do You Speak?
Your Linguistic Profile: |
| 65% General American English |
| 15% Upper Midwestern |
| 15% Yankee |
| 5% Dixie |
| 0% Midwestern |
Mini review: The Radioactive Boy Scout
The Radioactive Boy Scout: The Frightening True Story of a Whiz Kid and His Homemade Nuclear Reactor
by Ken Silverstein
In 1997, teenage Boy Scout David Hahn, who had been engaging in home-brewed science experiments for years in his parent’s backyard in Detroit, Michigan, built himself a functioning model nuclear reactor in his mother’s garden shed. He obtained his many of his materials from household sources like smoke detectors and radium-painted clocks from the 1930s. Alarmed at the amount of radiation his reactor was producing, David tore it down, but eventually he had a random encounter with police who realized what he was up to and called in federal authorities: the FBI, Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the EPA, which eventual designated his mother’s home a Superfund hazardous materials site. Silverstein’s engaging tale is an eye-opening, must-read account of both David’s personals science experiment and of the illusive promises and frightening dangers of nuclear power plants.
I can’t help but wonder how different David’s experiments would have been if they have been conducted a mere 7 years later. If he had access to a personal computer and the internet, he might have had better luck with the social engineering he did contacting various labs to obtain materials. On the other hand, he might have had more information about the dangers of what he was doing, which hopefully would have made him more cautious. He also might have had access to other amateur science enthusiasts, who perhaps could have tempered, for better or worse, what he was doing. I think it’s unfortunate that David never found a mentor who could shepherd him into a productive scientific field; he dropped out of community college and spent time in the military, where he seems to be directionless today.
The Aristocrats Joke
I’m posting this so I can peruse it from home…
Dead Frog features what has been described by the New York Times as “The Greatest Dirty Joke Ever Told” – The Aristocrats. Inspired by the forthcoming film from Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette which features 100 comics talking about and telling their versions of the joke.
This site contains variations on a single joke. A joke that is designed to offend. That is intentionally told with explicit language, sex, violence and disturbing imagery to see which teller can top the other. If you are faint of heart, you should leave now. If you aren’t, you will be. You will be.
I guess I *should* have taken pictures
Maybe if I had let my friends take pictures of my heart surgery, I would’ve gotten Boing Boinged, like this guy who photo-documented his brain surgery.
Giant Six-Shooter BBQ Grill
Pictures of a barbecue grill in the shape of a giant six-shooter. Located in Texas, of course.
Hucklebuck
One of my cats is named Huckleberry, but I frequently shorten his name or call him some variation on that, like Huck, or Hucklebuck. I had no idea that hucklebuck is a word that other people use, though. Today I happened to be reading about the Flickr photo of Shaving Cream that was mysteriously changing gender and noticed someone in the comments section said “so you maybe have ended up being additionally hucklebucked by…”
A quick Google search later, and I now know there was a 1949 R&B song by Paul Williams, that lead to a risque dance craze, a Blues band, a sexual term (didn’t look at that link, might not be SFW) a font face, a DJ, and a term meaning “to be hoodwinked or fooled.” And there’s a musical called “Dancehall Qs and Hucklebuck Shoes”
Who knew?
King Kong – Retro Style
Stephanie and I are going to see King Kong (the classic 1933 Fay Wray/Empire State building version, not the 1970s Jessica Lange/Twin Towers/so bad it’s funny version) on the terrace at the Indianapolis Museum of Art this Friday evening. I’m taking advantage of my summer hours program to go early and stake out a spot, complete with a good book and a picnic basket. Y’all are welcome to join us if you’d like. We’ll save some space on the blanket if you let me know ahead of time that you’ll be there. You have to go see the big monkey! Who doesn’t love giant monkeys? Besides, you should see the original before the Peter Jackson movie comes out.
Mini Reviews
I’ve been meaning to write reviews for all these things for a while, but I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time. So here are my mini reviews, because I can’t seem to keep up with everything.
All the President’s Men
I watched this movie for the first time this past weekend, and it was excellent. I knew the basics of the Watergate Scandal, but there was a lot I didn’t know, like how far beyond the simple break-in the scandal went. I was most fascinated by (and surprised by) the movie’s accounts of what Donald Segretti called “ratfucking”; the war of illegal dirty tricks waged against the Democratic Party by CREEP, using the secret six million dollar slush fund. Segretti was employed by CREEP to torpedo Democratic candidates in numerous ways, including forging letters and planting fake news stories with the press. Interestingly, Karl Rove was involved in doing some of this illegal work, and it appears he never quit.
Newsfire RSS/XML Feed Reader
I’ve been reading most of my regular news sources and favorite blogs in a piece of software that pulls in RSS or XML syndication feeds and aggregates and organizes them. Because I’m on a Mac, I chose Newsfire, which is one of the more popular readers, but there are numerous Feed readers for the PC as well, many of them are shareware or free. It’s a much easier way to keep track of my favorite websites and to make sure I don’t miss posts by my friends.
The Mermaid Chair
by Sue Monk Kidd
I didn’t enjoy this book as much as her previous book, The Secret Life of Bees. The heroine Jessie Sullivan returns to her childhood home on a tiny island to care for her disturbed mother, who in a fit of religious mania had cut off one of her fingers. While there, Jessie has an affair with one of the monks at the island monastery. I didn’t really buy into the “existential” angst that Jessie is supposedly feeling; the motivation for her affair. I kept wanting to tell her to get over it.
Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise
by Ruth Reichl
This was a fun, quick read by Ruth Reichl, who was the food critic for the New York Times for several years in the 80s, before moving on to become a critic and editor of Gourmet magazine. Reichl recounts how she attempted to write restaurant reviews that were useful to regular people by visiting many New York restaurants in disguise to fool restaurant owners, who would otherwise recognize her and give her special treatment that other guests wouldn’t receive. The book is an enlightening insider’s view of both the New York restaurant scene and of The New York Times, as well as an education in fine dining and in gourmet appreciation. There are some great recipes in it, as well. The only thing that bothered me was that Reichl gets a bit too into the disguises she wears at times; she revels in creating characters that seemed to me a bit over the top.
Cool Blue Photos
Really cool photography featuring the color blue.
Also, 24 different ways to lace your shoes.
Something I need: How to learn from you mistakes.
And last but not least, Signs of Religion in the American South. Scroll down a bit and see the link to an interesting slide show of religious based church and business signs.
‘Cultural Generations’ via wikipedia
via wikipedia, Cultural generations , i.e., “Baby Boomer” and “Generation X.”
Generation X, commonly abbreviated to Gen X, is the generation born after the Western Post–World War II baby boom. Demographers, historians and commentators use beginning birth dates from the early 1960s to the early 1980s.
The term was popularized by Douglas Coupland’s 1991 novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. Before that, it had been used for various subcultures or countercultures after the 1950s.
Generation Y, also known as the Millennial Generation, is the demographic cohort following Generation X. There are no precise dates for when Generation Y starts and ends. Commentators use beginning birth dates from the early 1980s to the early 2000s.
Generation Z is one name used for the cohort of people born after the Millennial Generation. There is no agreement on the exact dates of the generation with some sources starting it at the mid or late 1990s or from the mid-2000s to the present day. This is the generation which is currently being born.
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